AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

CNN just posted this video of an actual emergency landing on a city street. It ends with no damage to the passengers or the aircraft. See it here.

Just for fun here are jet-powered Beetles, toilets, arm chairs, and a shopping cart. While this next one isn’t jet-powered, it qualifies as the first flying dune buggy.

A Remos did turns about the sun, as opposed to turns about a point, during the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo last week. The video was made two days prior to a fatal accident involving a Remos that is still under investigation. One of the pilots now recovering from that accident helped us get these scenes, and we thought you ought to see them. Our sympathies to the family of the photographer who died. Check it out here.

I attended the U.S. Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring and took these shots of the newest models. Some of you are aware that there are 2,000 Rans Coyotes flying or in construction, but now it is an approved light sport aircraft. If your’re at work, this could be a little loud. I’m still learning the technology. A light sport plane has two seats and is limited to 1,320 pounds and 120 knots in cruise. But you can fly it on a driver’s license. Take a look.

Visit a sport pilot school via the video below. This one, Chesapeake Sport Pilot, happens to be 90 miles from Frederick, Maryland (AOPA headquarters), at Bay Bridge Airport on the Chesapeake Bay. Get this; the chief flight instructor in the video, Helen Woods, is a marine biologist with a master’s degree in marine science. Her students can identify from the air a school of manhaden, a porpoise, and cow-nosed rays. There are tons of rays in the bay next to Bay Bridge Airport. Here she describes the Tecnam P92 models. They rent for $90 to $100 per hour and include a low-wing model. Up you go! Click here if the video does not play.

Where are the Air Force candidates now?

The U.S. Air Force pilot candidates featured in the October 2008 AOPA Pilot article “Solo!” have completed initial flight screening and moved on to higher-level training. Here’s where they are now. 

Lt. Andrew Maston is completing multiengine training in a Hawker Beechcraft King Air with the U.S. Navy at Corpus Christi, Texas. He heads to Little Rock, Arkansas, for Lockheed C-130 training in February 2009. 

Lt. Kelly Wolters went to Laughlin AFB and trained in a T–6A Texan II and a T–1A business jet. She graduates January 23 and takes Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape training prior to heading to Altus AFB, Oklahoma, to train in the giant C–17 transport aircraft. After training she will fly the C-17 out of McGuire AFB, New Jersey. 

Lt. Josiah Smith and Lt. Tandon Mardis went to Columbus AFB, Mississippi, to fly the T–6 Texan II and will next fly a trainer based on a Hawker Beechcraft business jet, as will Lt. Ben Gleckler.  

Lt. David Foster went to Vance Air Force Base, Enid, Oklahoma, to train in the single-engine Hawker Beechcraft T–6A Texan II. His training was interrupted to correct a sinus problem and will resume soon.

Nope, Mark Holtzman of West Coast Aerial Photography of Sherman Oaks, California, wasn’t right above the Rose Bowl stadium when the B-2 bomber flew over. It just looks that way. Holtzman was aboard his Cessna Turbo 210 just for the opening ceremony of the Rose Bowl game. You can tell he was safely offset from the stadium (he was talking to controllers) by the fact that the bomber appears to be off-center. Have no fear, the Air Force is never that far off target. Great shot!

I was in Telluride, Colorado, Sunday and walked into a nature photography store, Wilderness Wonders . There I found Tony Newlin, a photographer who would love to fly. He was introduced to general aviation by his brother during many rides in a Cessna. Now the brother flies an F-16 and Newlin stays close to aviation as a passenger aboard Alaskan floatplanes. Newlin rides into the wilderness to take photos of grizzly bears–about 30 miles from where a videographer and his girlfriend were killed by bears several years ago. Newlin says the bears have a mean season, and he leaves them alone at that time of year. He’s a trained computer engineer with a degree or two and experience at Intel, but as long as the photos keep selling at his three Colorado shops, he’ll keep shooting and let the (computer) chips fall where they may. Here’s one of his photos.

His true passion is panorama photography, but it was difficult to fit in this space. Look for more photos of Telluride in my story “America’s Airports: Telluride, Colorado” in the February issue of AOPA Pilot magazine.  

There are two ways to experience flying a Cessna Mustang without forking over your millions. You DO have millions, right? One way is to add a computer re-creation of a Mustang to your existing Microsoft Flight Simulator 10. Flight1 Software and Cessna Aircraft Company teamed to bring you a $55 Cessna Mustang complete with working Garmin G1000. Learn more here.

That simulation is good preparation for the next step up in simulation, a multi- multi-million-dollar full-motion flight simulator for the Cessna Mustang at FlightSafety International’s Cessna Learning Center at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport. You can walk to it from the main airport terminal. For $400 you can get an hour in this entry level business jet (Cessna NEVER calls it a very light jet). Yes, you have to fly to Wichita if you’re not already there, but I have been in that simulator, and it is worth more than $400 to fly it for an hour. You’ll be surprised to see how easy it is, although I hope you swerve less on the takeoff run than I did.

Looking for a home with a hangar? The New York Times on December 12 listed a half-dozen in Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Texas, and Washington ranging from $430,000 to $1.9 million. There’s also an article on a couple in West Virginia living with the airplane. You can see the article here. To see the homes, click “On the market” near the bottom of the page under “Multimedia.”